| SEP Election Campaign '98: Questions and Answers |
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Could you please tell me what is the difference between:
Are they all based on Das Kapital by Karl Marx? AF Dear AF, A full answer to the question you pose would require a review of some of the most critical political experiences of the working class in the 20th century something that I would urge you to begin to undertake. The differences between the SEP and the other two parties are fundamental and irreconcilable. The SEP is the Australian section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, the world party established by Leon Trotsky in 1938 to continue the struggle for world socialism against the crimes and betrayals carried out by Stalinism. We fight for the revival of a genuine socialist culture in the working class as the pre-condition for the development of an independent revolutionary movement aimed at the complete transformation of society in the interests of the vast majority, not the privileged few. The Socialist Party originated in a split in 1971 with the former (now defunct) CPA. The politics of the CPA were Stalinist that is, the party based itself upon, and defended, the nationalist politics of the bureaucratic regime in the Soviet Union. As you may know, Stalin and the bureaucracy he headed, abandoned the principles of socialist internationalism on which the October 1917 revolution had been based, and, on the basis of the theory of "socialism in a single country" carried through the betrayal, not only of the Russian revolution, but of the revolutionary strivings of workers around the world in the late 20s, the 1930s and then subsequently. The highpoint of Stalin's betrayals came in 1936-38, when he organised, through the Moscow show trials, the murder of all the leading Bolsheviks, along with hundreds of thousands of socialist-minded workers, intellectuals, artists, engineers, scientists in a bid to wipe out all traces of the October revolution. The chief defendant at these trials was Leon Trotsky, the co-leader, with Lenin, of the revolution, and the founder of the Marxist opposition to the Stalinist bureaucracy the Left Opposition. The split in the CPA in 1971 ocurred between one faction those who went on to found the SPA that wished to continue its slavish support of the Stalinist bureaucracy, and the other faction which, following the logic of the politics of "socialism in one country" was adapting itself ever more closely to its own national bourgeoisie, necessitating a complete break with Moscow. The split erupted over the Soviet invasion of Czecholslovaka. But both the SPA and the former CPA (right up until its final collapse) continue to support the Moscow Trials and all the crimes carried out by Stalin. We have dealt with these issues in some detail in our book, published in 1981, entitled Betrayal: A History of the Communist Party of Australia. The DSP forms part of the milieu of middle class radical protest politics, which has nothing whatsoever to do with genuine Marxism. Its orientation is not towards the independent political education and mobilisation of the working class, but to protesting to the powers that be, and pressuring the Labor Party and the trade unions, all within the framework of the Australian national state. Its origins go back to a tendency that emerged within the Fourth International in the 1950s, led by Michel Pablo, which argued that Trotsky's perspective of building an independent revolutionary party within the working class had to be abandoned in favour of applying pressure to the Stalinist and social democratic (Labor) apparatuses. The only party based on the historical materialist conceptions outlined in Marx's Capital, as well as on all the other great works of classical Marxism, is the International Committee. If you would like to read further on any of these issues, we have a great deal of material available, through www.mehring.com, the International Committee's online bookstore. With regards, Linda Tenenbaum Further Reading: |
| SEP Election Campaign '98: Questions and Answers |